04: ON BOARD A SMALL IMPERIAL LANDER. RED EMERGENCY LIGHTING FLASHES. A KLAXON SOUNDS REPEATEDLY. A COMPUTERISED VOICE COUNTS DOWN THE SECONDS UNTIL POWER SOURCE DETONATION AND CRITICISES ANGLE OF DESCENT. A GROUP OF THEATRICALLY DRESSED ORKS ATTEMPT TO CONTROL THE VESSELS CHAOTIC FLIGHT PATH.

ZIGGY“I told ya this was gonna be a good one boyz! This is better than Waaaghstonbury!”

SMASH“Did you see the face on those hyoo-mans when we stole dis heap?”

MOSHA (Smiles broadly. Holds up a blood smeared power axe of unusual configuration. A severed human face displaying a surprised expression slides bloodily down the face of the weapon)

Following on from yesterdays first act, both parties have located the region where the stolen Imperial lander crashed: in the depths of the hostile jungles of Krellborn IX. Neither party know if Warlord Frangks KommandoLaserguided Offensive Warhead Division survived the crash or if they managed to escape the Imperial Navy with their prize intact. Both Frangk and Verhoeven want the Ragna Rock very much.

For our first game we reduced the total number of miniatures available for each “League”, just so that we wouldnt get bogged down. With new confidence in the ruleset after the previous game we each used our full sized force for this scenario.

Of minor note is that Frangk the ork leader sacrificed an Ability that would make him more effective in combat so that he could have the “Commander” Ability. Commander allows that force to be expanded slightly, so the ork force visible above is on the large side for games of Pulp Alley (I just wanted to use a handful of cheap gretchin with Zodgrod)

PB changed his league quite a bit from the first iteration. He dropped the MiBs other than the rather successful and entertaining Agent C from the previous game and added a pair of “Feathren” troops, an Astropath and a combat servitor (played by Mean Machine Angel). Inquisitor Verhoeven has a history with Pat the Astropath in our games, so it was fun to bring the plucky little guy along again.

Set up for this game spreads the forces around the table, both sides searching for important clues or artifacts in the wreckage…

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Despite knowing that her foes are in the area, Rosa is still mildly surprised that the initial contact is Kim Jong Bono wandering into her gunsights, again. “Hello, hello…” she mutters, lining her customised hellpistols up with the targets ridiculous visor. The servitor, lacking vocal chords, says nothing.

Deja vu kicks in for all concerned as Zodgrod and some gretchin support appear behind Bonos collapsing body, putting some pressure on Rosa. The gunslinger being the centre of attention allows the Astropath and his Feathren colleague to approach the lander wreckage in search of data.

Taking a cue from Rosa, the Inquisitor decloaks to the flank of the main ork force and drops Kronkie with a controlled burst from his custom Tau tech combi-rifle.

Verhoeven (concealed in the jungle, top-centre) swiftly deals with Eightball the gretchin with a backhand blow from his powerfist. A native saurian (left) with information regarding the occupants of the crashed lander observes the ork advance with independently focusable eyes.

A master of gun-fu, Rosa is a terror at close range, so it was with difficulty that Zodgrod closed the distance between them, using the cover of the escape pod to his advantage. His gnarled face twisted into an approximation of a grin, the veteran of the Udrion Prime fighting pits leaps towards the desperada…

In contrast with Rosa, Agent C uses her various non-combat talents to detect the landers flight recorder and remove it from a hostile native larval lifeform. All the book learnin’ in the sector wouldnt have prepared her for the attentions of a better, stronger, faster ambush gretchin however. Emerging from behind cover, Gretchin Zeros skill with paired Desert Squig semi-automatics badly outclasses Agent C, taking her out.

Even a hyper-grot is still just a grot however and the appearance of a Feathren warrior catches Gretchin Zero wrong footed, cutting his continued participation short.

Rosa bites, scratches and kicks her way out of combat with Zodgrod, pausing only to take Shifty the grot out of action with a single shot. But Zodgrod isnt finished with her yet…

With a bellow, Frank intercepts Verhoeven en route to interrogate the native saurian and the jungle resounds with the clash of powerfist against choppa and close range fire. Despite the effectiveness of close range weapons fire, many confrontations have nonetheless dissolved into frantic life and death melee.

A Feathren tries to lend its weight to the epic struggle between sidekicks, but gets knocked headfirst in to a Man-trap for its troubles. But time is running out, and dead birdmen count for naught when little information about the Ragna Rock has been found…

With only moments to go before dusk wakes the real terrors of the jungle, Kronkie and Carrot forcibly reprogram the servitor that has been holding them up for the majority of the game. Simultaneously, Verhoeven gets the upper hand with Frangk, driving him back into cover. This gives Verhoeven enough time to question the local. With no time for diplomacy, the Inquisitor grabs the space newt-man by the throat and speaks a single word: “WHERE?”

Final Score: Imperials 1 Plot Point, Orks 0 Plot Points.

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The table wide set up in this scenario led to some interesting match ups, with psychic Astropaths and birdmen assaulting goblin fireteams and lone bionic cadavers holding up entire flanks.

Initiative in Pulp Alley is determined randomly at the start of the game, but from then on Initiative shifts to players who take Plot Points or roundly trash opponents in combat. Initiative has to be wrested from a player: it is never passively given up.

The game is not IGOUGO, with the player with Initiative determining which player (not character) gets to take an action next. This is an interesting mechanism and quite a lot of fun, but that poxy servitor survived several combats more than he was statistically likely to, thereby keeping Initiative with PB and keeping the orks on the back foot for most of the game.

Again, the game was low scoring, with only one of the Plot Points captured in the end. Like last time, this doesnt really represent the scrabbling around for the various PPs that took place and in some respects in this case it was an effect of the deployment rules.

Lastly, this was the very first game that I played with the jungle terrain set that I made earlier this year. Gaming on a Deathworld jungle, including various flora and fauna as well as dense, Forbidden Planet/Star Trek foliage has been a goal for ~25 years now, so getting a fun game played in it was another minor bucket list item dealt with.

Dare you miss the final installment of The Ragna Rock: Pt 3 – The Final Countdown?

Yesterday I was looking at a beautiful tutorial for making far more authentic miniature jungles than mine. But I consoled myself with the thought that a cheesy looking spoace jungle is entirely in keeping with the source material 😀

Im glad that you are getting something out of them Mr Saturdays. Writing is something that I am uncomfortable with but I figure that if you dont attempt it, then it wont improve.

The jungle looks pretty close to how I hoped that it would. The eye line shots from the miniatures POV do give that B-movie, sci-fi TV show look that I wanted. I think that the man-traps are everyones favourite actually, they are certainly top of the polls. The cartoony, OTT sculpting and the Little Shop of Horrors colour scheme make them weirdly easy to relate to for some reason 🙂

Perfect in every single way. This blog is pre-eminent amongst those which recently beguiled me into starting my own Sci-Fi project. Whether I should be thanking you for that is another matter entirely…